THE SUN, BLOCKED BY STORM CLOUDS FOR A WEEK NOW, HAD COMPLETELY abandoned Los Angeles for a more exotic locale, like Fiji or the Antarctic. For the second time that day, Colin and I parked near the bullet-peppered telephone pole that had held Chanita’s yellow “Missing” flyer. My shoulders tensed as I climbed out of my Porsche SUV. Didn’t really wanna be here, especially at this time of day, especially in nasty weather like this. Monsters liked the dusk, and they thrived in the rain.
“What y’all want now?” Young, snide, female.
Those girls from the morning came to stand on the other side of Colin’s Charger. They had changed out of their fruit-colored jeans and into tight camouflage pants and faux UGGs.
“You talk to adults like that all the time?” I asked Scowler.
“And adults who are also cops?” Colin added.
Even I had to roll my eyes. Fuck da police, Taggert.
Scowler placed a hand on her hip. “What y’all want now, Mister and Lady Officer?”
These girls reminded me of Miss Alberta’s daughters and their friends. Back then, Dominique and Angelique had stuck out their legs to block the stairway leading up to my apartment. What’s the password, they’d always demand. We ain’t gon’ let you pass without the password. Of course, I never knew the password. Stuck there, I cried as they laughed. After several torturous minutes, they moved their legs from my path, and I rushed up the stairs with our laundry or the mail now wet with my tears. Mom and Tori complained that I let them bully me. “They just messin’ with you,” my sister always claimed. “They’ll leave you alone if you quit acting like you’re scared of them.” So I ignored them. And ignoring them only made them angrier, and soon their juvenile taunts no longer thrilled them. One afternoon, they jumped me in the laundry room. Busted my lip, loosened a tooth, and left bruises on my back in the shape of shell-toed Adidas.
Little bitches.
“You guys know that Chanita Lords is dead?” I inquired now.
The chubby one zipped up her puffy nylon jacket, then said, “Uh huh. Ontrel told us after Regina told him.”
Scowler sucked her teeth. “I ain’t gon’ let somebody steal me.”
“Ontrel told us who you are,” Scowler said. “And he said that you used to live here and that you knew Miss Alberta, like, a hundred years ago.”
“And now you get to carry a gun and hang out with white people,” Braids said.
“Yay, me,” I said, smirking.
“You shoot anybody?” Chubby One asked.
“Ladies,” Colin said, “let’s—”
“That mean she shot somebody.” Scowler turned to Colin. “We know you have.”
Colin’s face reddened.
“Aw,” Chubby One said, “be nice. Leave him alone.”
Then, all three girls laughed.
“So what do you think happened to Chanita?” I asked, nonplussed.
Annoyed, Scowler pushed out a breath. “That’s a stupid question. Coulda been anybody who killed her.”
“Tell me your name,” Colin demanded. “I’m not diggin’ your tone.”
Braids snickered and stage-whispered to Chubby One. “Did he just say ‘digging’?”
“You got something to say?” Colin asked.
Colin hadn’t interacted much with girls who talked back, swerved their necks, whose stank attitudes wafted off of them like burning toast. He had only met the ones who could no longer talk back or suck their teeth.
“Names, girls,” I said.
Scowler said, “My name’s S-h-a capital Q-u-a-n.”
“And you two?” Colin asked, pen on pad.
The two other girls looked to ShaQuan.
ShaQuan nodded.
Braids said, “Treasure.”
Chubby One said, “Imunique.”
My pen froze on the pad. “You’re what?”
“Imunique.” And she spelled it for me. “Ontrel and Lamar and them call you Lockjaw. Said you like a pit bull on a baby’s head.”
I shrugged. “A pit bull, huh? That’s a new one. So, ShaQuan: what do you mean, anybody could’ve killed her?”
ShaQuan peered at me with small, hard eyes—the eyes of every bully in every neighborhood in every nation in the world. “Anybody. Coulda. Killed. Her.”
“Nita didn’t hang out with us,” Treasure explained. “Her grandma was always drivin’ her to the Valley and stuff for classes so we ain’t seen her that much.”
“She was always gettin’ in cars with grown-ups like she was important or somethin’,” ShaQuan added. “Why ain’t nobody asked them nothing?”
“Who’s ‘them’?” Colin asked. “Who are the adults she hung out with?”
ShaQuan pulled gelled tufts of hair back beneath a barrette and into the pitiful up-top ponytail. “Y’all keep messin’ with us cuz we black. And we got in one stupid fight with Nita and now everybody wanna blame us.”
“What was the fight about?” I asked.
“She disrespected me,” ShaQuan said. “She called me a loser on Facebook. So I’m, like, say that shit to my face.”
“Everybody brave on the Internet,” Treasure said.
“Did she say it to your face?” I asked, eyebrow cocked.
“She said it,” ShaQuan said.
“And you beat her down, right?” Colin said, nodding.
ShaQuan sucked her teeth. “People think Nita was perfect, but she wasn’t.”
“How was she not perfect?” I asked.
Treasure picked at a zit with her fingernail. “Regina used to make her boost shit all the time. And Nita always talked about gettin’ pregnant by a baller so he had to take care of her and the baby.” She swerved her head. “That ain’t somebody who all sweet and innocent.”
“And she tried to trap Ontrel,” ShaQuan spat. “She used to poke holes in his rubbers.”
I smirked. “Really?”
ShaQuan dropped her eyes to the sidewalk. “Uh huh.”
“When did you see her last?” Colin asked.
“Friday,” Treasure said. “She got into an SUV.”
“With who?” I asked.
The girl shrugged. “The windows was tinted.”
“Did you see the license plate?” I asked.
“It started with a number,” Treasure said.
I waited for more.
Treasure rolled her eyes. “Dang, what else you gotta know?”
“Well, for starters,” Colin growled, “try getting the tone outta your voice.”
“What tone?” Treasure asked in that same tone.
“You talk to your mom and dad like that?” he asked.
The girls looked at each other, then laughed.
The color returned to Colin’s face, but his lips disappeared. “Would you three laugh if I took you down to the station for questioning?”
ShaQuan smiled. “Which station? Downtown or Seventy-seventh? I been to both.”
The trio laughed some more.
Jaw clenched, Colin looked to me for help.
I winked at him. Sorry, kid. “So what kind of SUV did Nita get into?”
“It was like a Yukon or Tahoe or somethin’ like that,” Imunique said.
“Anybody around here drive a truck like that?” Colin asked.
“What we look like?” ShaQuan snapped. “The DMV?”
Stepping back, he ran his hand through his hair.
I could feel Colin’s blood pressure rise. “Ontrel drive an SUV?” I asked the girls.
“Or do we need to grab him and ask him ourselves?” Colin asked.
“Ontrel drive a Bonneville,” ShaQuan said with no extra flavor.
“Around what time did you see Chanita?” I asked.
“Like after school let out,” Imunique said.
“You speak to her?” I asked.
They considered each other with worried eyes. Finally, ShaQuan offered, “We said hi.”
“And?”
“We asked where she was going.”
“And?”
ShaQuan opened her mouth, but changed her mind and shrugged.
“Was she alone when you talked to her?” I asked.
All three nodded. “And then the truck came,” Imunique said, “and drove her away.”
“Where were you when all this was happening?” I asked.
“King and MLK,” Treasure said.
“By the Krispy Kreme?” Colin asked, writing in his pad.
“At that bus stop,” Imunique added.
“Yup,” the other two agreed.
Just as Gwen Zapata’s witness had remembered.
“On Friday,” I said, “did you tell the cops about the SUV?”
“No,” ShaQuan said. “Ain’t nobody asked us nothing about no SUV.”
I sighed. “You think Ontrel could’ve—?”
“No,” Treasure shouted, eyes wide. “He innocent. Cops always messin’ with him. Y’all—” Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away from me.
“I think Mess-cans did it,” Imunique said as she pulled her braids into a loose bun. “They be hatin’ on us, tryin’ to run us out of here, and so they took Nita and showed us that they ain’t scared of us.”
“Payback,” Treasure added as she dried tears on her jacket’s sleeve.
“Them cholos from Eighteenth Street roll up in here all the time,” ShaQuan complained. “Visitin’ they moms and sisters and fifty-million relatives all livin’ up in one apartment. Always trying to start shit. They coulda took Nita and drove her to East LA or to Mexico or to hoochie-coochie-la-cucaracha-wherever-they-live.”
“And then they drove her to Bonner Park?” Colin asked.
“Yup,” the girls said together.
“They almost killed my cousin two weeks ago,” Imunique claimed. “They shot him over on Parthenon. He still on life support.”
“Does your cousin bang?” I asked.
“Yeah, he bang,” Imunique said, her gaze hot with offense. “But that don’t give them no right to be shootin’ at people.”
“That’s what she get,” ShaQuan muttered.
“You mean Nita?” I asked, pulse banging in my throat. “Why would you say that?”
“Cuz she wanted to be white,” ShaQuan said, head cocked, hand on hip.
“She talked like you,” Imunique said to me. “Like a white girl.”
“She was all, I’m better than y’all cuz I’m on the honor roll,” Treasure added, her voice high to affect snootiness.
“And that’s why we kicked her ass,” Imunique said.
“Shut up,” ShaQuan spat at her friend. “You talk too damn much.”
Treasure shook her head. “And I don’t believe she really dead.”
I blinked at her, but Colin spoke first. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”
Treasure gaped at him. “You don’t know. Regina is sus.”
“Sus?” Colin asked.
“Suspect,” I told him.
“She do all kinds of crooked shit,” Treasure continued. “She may be runnin’ an insurance scam or somethin’. That bitch be gettin’ over.”
Back in the day, Miss Alberta also got over—using food stamps that had somehow been liberated from neighbors’ mailboxes. Receiving Social Security checks for Dominique, who was stupid but far from special needs. So the reality of Regina learning the fine art of scamming at her mother’s knee? Certainly.
Treasure cocked her head. “Have y’all seen Nita’s body?”
I said, “Yes. Of course we have.”
Unblinking, Treasure said, “Y’all check for a pulse?”
Colin clapped. “Okay. This is ridiculous. We need your guardians’ phone numbers.”
“Why?” Treasure asked.
He explained to them about witness statements.
The girls rambled off their numbers.
I held up my hand. “Quick question—”
“We gotta go.” ShaQuan set off east.
“We’re not done,” Colin said.
“We under arrest?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
“So, like I said, we gotta go.”
I waved. “Where you headed, if I may ask?”
ShaQuan grinned at me. “Girl Scouts.”